Director of Mission Operations – Unmanned Systems

UFORCE exists to make aggression unaffordable.

Founded in Ukraine and headquartered in London, UFORCE is a defence-technology company with operations across Europe, the United States and Asia.

UFORCE builds uncrewed vessels, ground robotics and aircraft, autonomy software, and the command-and-control layer that operates them together. Each platform is deployable on its own, and stronger as part of the system. Its product lines include the MAGURA family of uncrewed surface vessels, the NEMESIS family of strike platforms, the LIUT family of ground robotic platforms, and counter-UAS systems.

About the role

We're looking for a Director of Mission Operations to build and lead the team that delivers UFORCE's uncrewed systems missions. You'll own the operational portfolio across the customer lifecycle: pre-sale demonstrations, events and exercises, as well as post-sale deployments and customer implementations.

Reporting to the VP of Delivery, you'll lead and develop our Mission Managers, establish the standards and decision-making practices for safe, repeatable execution, and make sure concurrent missions have the people, equipment and support they need. You'll work closely with the Director of Training, who provides training personnel, pilots and field deployment engineers, and the Director of Operations, who supplies equipment, products and logistics.

This is a hands-on leadership role, but not one where you'll personally run every mission. You'll deploy when it matters—on first-of-kind, high-risk or high-visibility missions, or to coach and assess your team—while building an operation that succeeds through capable mission leaders.

What you'll do

• Own the mission portfolio across demonstrations, exercises, deployments and customer implementations. Maintain a clear view of upcoming work, mission ownership, staffing, assets, readiness and risk.

• Review new opportunities for operational feasibility, capacity and risk before commitments are made. Resolve competing demands where you can, and bring recommended trade-offs to leadership when needed.

• Lead, hire and develop Mission Managers. Establish clear expectations, a structured qualification path, regular feedback and backup coverage, while managing deployment tempo and fatigue.

• Set and maintain practical mission standards, including planning templates, risk assessments, readiness reviews, briefs, communications plans and closeout reports. Check that they work in the field and improve them as the team learns.

• Establish clear decision and escalation boundaries with leadership and the appropriate technical and safety owners. Make it safe and expected for the team to raise concerns and pause or stop a mission.

• Work with the Director of Training to secure qualified personnel and with the Director of Operations to secure platforms, equipment, logistics and support. Set clear requirements and lead assigned personnel during mission execution.

• Coordinate with relevant specialists and authorities to ensure aviation, maritime, range, customer, host-nation and export-control requirements are addressed before deployment. Maintain disciplined handling of customer and controlled information.

• Serve as a senior operational counterpart to key customers. Communicate objectives, readiness, risks, results and limitations clearly, and escalate issues early with options and recommendations.

• Turn after-action reviews, field data and customer feedback into improvements to operations, training and product. Partner with engineering and product teams to prioritize evidence-backed findings without overriding technical approval boundaries.

• Build a regular portfolio review covering mission outcomes, readiness, incidents, corrective actions and team capacity.

Required Skills

• Experience leading a deployed operations function or multiple concurrent field teams, with responsibility for planning, prioritization, resourcing and execution.

• A track record of hiring, developing and managing mission leaders or comparable field-operations leaders.

• Experience building or operating a risk-management and decision-authority framework, including readiness reviews, escalation and go/no-go decisions within defined authority.

• Strong mission-planning and operational judgment, including the ability to assess complex plans, challenge assumptions and balance customer objectives against capacity and risk.

• Enough understanding of uncrewed systems, payloads and supporting equipment to assess operational feasibility and work effectively with technical specialists.

• Experience establishing practical operating standards, templates, checklists and reporting processes across teams.

• Clear, candid communication with senior customers and internal leaders, especially when explaining limitations, incidents or difficult trade-offs.

• Strong cross-functional leadership and a commitment to safety, disciplined compliance and evidence-based reporting.

• Willingness and ability to travel regularly and deploy when needed.

Nice to have

• Experience in uncrewed systems, military operational command, maritime or aviation operations leadership, test range operations or a comparable field environment.

• Experience supporting both pre-sale demonstrations and post-sale customer deployments or implementations.

• Familiarity with aviation, maritime, range or host-nation operating requirements, and experience coordinating with the relevant specialists and authorities.

• Operator credentials, maritime or aviation qualifications, or test and evaluation experience relevant to the mission portfolio.

• Experience turning field evidence and after-action reviews into improvements in product, training and operational performance.

The nature of combat has changed.

Tomorrow’s battlefield success depends on autonomy, speed, and adaptability.

And UFORCE is ready.

Are You?